Last month a snorkeler disentangled a sperm whale from a bunch of human garbage in the ocean. Here is a video of the encounter, which seems to originate with the Instagram account globetrottingbaes. (This is a LinkMe FPP via mygothlaundry. )

Lorien, one half of globetrottingbaes, left the following comment on their Instagram post:

It's taken a couple of days to process this After a couple of big storms this past week there was a layer of plant debris and trash at the surface of the usually pristine waters here. Another boat of people had already jumped in the water to observe and photograph this majestic lady, so that when we slid in there were a few people in front of us. To be clear, there is no way the people not directly by this whale's head, like those toward the back, could see that her mouth and throat were full of organic debris and trash, but there were people in front of us who could and just proceeded to take videos. Yes, we also took videos, but we were shook. After only seconds of observing her I thought that's enough. I felt sick. I swam in front of the few people near her head. I was honestly nervous, I'd never been this close to a Sperm whale and had certainly never considered putting my hands in ones mouth. I braced myself against her and started to remove the debris. I did not know Robby had hung back and was filming. The part shown here in the video was the "easy part" as I didn't really have to put my hand super close to her teeth where she could close her jaw on my hand. Though I didn't need to be, I was still nervous, but she was super relaxed seeming and allowed me to remove the first big pieces. After this I surfaced for a breath, then immediately went back down to get the rest of the trash that was further down in her throat. Again I was a bit nervous, but she barely moved and let me reach in to remove the last of the trash. Once all was removed she seemed relaxed and hung around for a bit. As she started swimming, slowly enough for Robby and I to snorkel alongside, she rolled around multiple times, checking us both out and was quite chatty. Once she stopped we just stared at each other for a while before we all went our own ways. These moments were very special, but also heartbreaking. Caption continued in comments Update: we saw this individual yesterday and she is happy doing all the whale things, diving deep to hunt, socializing with her pod mates and just generally being whale-y awesome ☺️

I couldn't find much coverage of this from any website that wasn't just those crappy reposting clickbait websites. The Inertia, which appears to be a blog for surfing enthusiasts featuring occasional contributions from famous surfers, posted this article, and a site called Wide Open Spaces has this article which notes, "Although Lorien describes herself as helping a distressed whale, experts say you should not touch them. Costa Rica Dive & Surf, which organizes swimming adventures, explained on its website that swimming with whales and touching them can be dangerous. Besides putting yourself at risk by interacting with a wild animal, you could also spread germs to the giant mammal and even be the source of its distress." Like all their cetacean brethren, sperm whales are so amazing. Here is an hour-long doc called "Sperm Whales: Titans of the Deep," which I believe originated as a TV miniseries. (caveat, I haven't finished watching it.) Here is footage of a deep-sea sperm whale encounter from the EV Nautilus research vessel. And here's a reminder that these creatures sleep vertically!

The just-before or the just-after tell a story; whether of becoming, or of letting go. For over 12 years, Mary Jo Hoffman has been taking a daily image of a gathered natural object (usually plants, sometimes dead birds and in one case, a live toad). Click on "details" at the bottom right of each object for, well, details. Hoffman on technique: "I spend a lot of time waiting for the sun to go behind a cloud so I can get softer lighting."